Great Books Ep 111. Herodotus - The History - Book 2 (Euterpé), Part 3. Unstring Your Bow from Time to Time
Just as a bow needs to be unstrung to let it rest, our minds need to be released from the constant tension of serious work or thought.
“Bowmen bend their bows when they wish to shoot; unbrace them when the shooting is over. Were they kept always strung they would break, and fail the archer in time of need. So it is with men. If they give themselves constantly to serious work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or sport, they lose their senses, and become mad or moody.”
~ ‘The History’ by Herodotus (George Rawlinson translation. GB6 - p. 86)
Thoughts
The quote above reminded me of the popular saying - “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. This was said by Amasis, who Herodotus credits as the greatest king of Egypt.
“It is said that the reign of Amasis was the most prosperous time that Egypt ever saw, —the river was more liberal to the land, and the land brought forth more abundantly for the service of man than had ever been known before;”
And yet, as a contemporary person, I had not heard the name Amasis before reading this. I had definitely heard of Cheops and the Great Pyramid, though in the book Herodotus specifically says that Cheops was one of the most hated kings, and the people detested them so much that they didn’t even want to mention his and his brother’s names. And yet, 2500 years later, I guess Cheops is known to an average person but not Amasis. When Mycerinus, Cheops’ son, is on the throne at a later point in time, an oracle comes and tells him that he only has 6 years to live. He is shocked. He tells the oracle that his father and his uncle were cruel men who ruled the kingdom for over 100 years and had closed the temples. He is a good man who reopened the temples and gave people freedom, but his reign is cut short. What kind of justice is it? The oracle tells him that he was supposed to be cruel, since people needed the punishment, but instead, he was kind. That is something to think about, for sure! It is probably better for a person in a leadership position to do what the job demands of them and not override the responsibilities with their personal values. It is better to resign when your values conflict with the job expectations, right? Herodotus provides an example in the book itself. An Ethiopian king named Sabacos rules Egypt for 50 years peacefully, but he quits when he sees a vision that he needs to kill all the Egyptian priests. He did not want to commit an act of sacrilege even if the counsel came from a god.
Anyway, coming back to the main theme that I wanted to talk about - “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” - about work-life balance. As per Herodotus, King Amasis woke up early and did all his kingly duties in the first half of the day, and in the second half, he spent drinking, joking and spending leisure time with people. His friends were not pleased and told him that he should not demean himself and should hold up to the royal dignity always. People would not see him as competent. But the king understood a fundamental truth about human nature - constant tension is unsustainable. Keeping a bow strung at all times places an immense and unnecessary strain on it. When it is needed the most, it might snap and fail the archer. So it needs to be unstrung and strung back. This reminded me of the stringing of the bow scene in The Odyssey (See Ep 491).
Just as a bow needs to be unstrung, our minds need to be released from the constant tension of serious work or thought, right? So relaxation and leisure are not luxuries or wasted time but are necessary for a healthy mind and body.
I wonder if there are more avenues of relaxation & leisure now than in the past (say over 100 or 1000 years ago). There are thousands of apps on your phone that can give you a dopamine hit and give you a sense of fun. You can easily connect with other people, get lost in movies, TV series, or your favorite book, play games, and more. There are also more avenues of work. Work can be never-ending. I do think that you can do more work now than before. Technology has enabled us to be able to do more work. Take, for instance, an Egyptian priest. He had to shave himself completely once every two days to be clean, right? Even if he did it himself or someone else did it for him, shaving is easier and faster now than then. He needed water to take a bath or to do some rituals. There was no running water that came out when one turned on a tap. My point is that every single thing took longer and took time away from the actual work. We can probably do more actual, deep work than our ancestors. So that puts a lot more pressure on our brains and bodies than we realize. That makes intentional relaxation even more important. Because, regardless of what people say, work is addictive. Once you get into it, you want to continue doing it. It could be anything - software coding, writing a design doc, writing a novel, playing an instrument, painting, sculpture, assembling furniture, etc. I think that is why a lot of people don’t want to retire. They like the work. But it is also important to savor life, though the degree to which you can savor depends on your culture and your personality.
Brief Summary - The History - Book 2 (Euterpé) - Part 3 (Sections 125-182)
Part 3 mostly talks about several Egyptian kings.
Rhampsinitus - A king of immense wealth who built a special treasury. Rewarded a clever thief by offering his daughter in marriage.
Cheops - A very cruel king who built the Great Pyramid and closed all the temples. Forced 100,000 men to labor for 10 years on a causeway and 20 years on the pyramid. When he ran out of money, he forced his daughter into prostitution. She used part of that money to build a pyramid for herself.
Chephren - Cheops’ brother who ruled after him. Was equally cruel and also built a large pyramid, though not as big as his brother’s.
Mycerinus - Cheops’ son who ruled after Chephren. Was a just and pious king who reopened the temples. His daughter dies and an oracle tells him he has only 6 years to live. So he spends the last six years enjoying day and night.
Asychis - Built a magnificent brick pyramid and said it surpasses the stone ones of his ancestors.
Anysis - Blind king who was exiled during an Ethiopian invasion led by King Sabacos. He returned to rule after 50 years.
Sabacos - Ruled justly for 50 years. His punishment for criminals was to force them to elevate the ground of their cities. He gave up his rule when he saw a dream that he had to kill Egyptian priests, and didn’t want to do a heinous deed.
Sethos - A priest who became the king. He took away lands from the warrior class. When Sennacherib’s Assyrian army invaded, the warriors refused to fight. But luckily, on the eve of the fight, a multitude of mice ate through the weapons and the enemy was defeated. As per the Egyptians, there were 341 generations between the first king and King Sethos.
The Twelve Kings - After Sethos, Egypt was divided among 12 kings. An oracle had said that whoever poured a libation from a bronze cup would rule everyone. When one of the kings, Psammetichus, used his bronze helmet to pour a libation by mistake, the others exiled him. The 12 kings built the Labrynth, which Herodotus found to be more impressive than the pyramids.
Psammetichus - He hires a group of Carian and Ionian pirates as mercenaries and defeats the 11 kings (who exiled him) to take the throne.
Amasis - Born as a common man, he became king through intelligence. Herodotus says he was the greatest king of Egypt. He opened the doors to Greeks to stay in Egypt, and there was a lot of collaboration from then on.
Other Highlights
1 - Mass labor
“A hundred thousand men laboured constantly, and were relieved every three months by a fresh lot. It took ten years' oppression of the people to make the causeway for the conveyance of the stones, a work not much inferior, in my judgment, to the pyramid itself.”
How do you get 100k people to work on one site/project? Remarkable and a bit unbelievable. The number of people who worked on Hoover dam, WTC, Burj Khalifa, etc., would be much lower I guess.
2 - Annual visit from underworld
“the daughter of Mycerinus requested her father in her dying moments to allow her once a year to see the sun.”
Returning every year to see the sun reminded me of Onam2 or similar festivals.
3 - Aesop
“When the Delphians, in obedience to the command of the oracle, made proclamation that if any one claimed compensation for the murder of Aesop he should receive it, the person who at last came forward was Iadmon, grandson of the former Iadmon, and he received the compensation.”
Interesting to see the mention of Aesop, the fable writer.
4 - Interesting punishment
“When an Egyptian was guilty of an offence, his plan was not to punish him with death: instead of so doing, he sentenced him, according to the nature of his crime, to raise the ground to a greater or a less extent in the neighbourhood of the city to which he belonged.”
Very ingenious way of punishment. What if the person did not obey?
5 - Sennacharib
“Afterwards, therefore, when Sanacharib, king of the Arabians 1 and Assyrians, marched his vast army into Egypt, the warriors one and all refused to come to his aid.”
It was so interesting to read about Sennacharib here. There is a poem by Lord Byron3 that I’d read long ago (blog post on this) and there, this army was defeated in the night when the angel of the lord came and put to death 18.5k people (2 Kings 19:35).
6 - Generations of gods
“Pan is exceedingly ancient, and belongs to those whom they call "the eight gods," who existed before the rest. Hercules is one of the gods of the second order, who are known as "the twelve"; and Bacchus belongs to the gods of the third order, whom the twelve produced.”
If we think of the Greek gods, the 3 generations could be the Titans (Kronos, Hyperion, Oceanus, etc.), the Olympian gods (Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, etc.) and then children (Apollo, Hermes, Athena, etc.). But even the Titans had second generation - Atlas, Prometheus, Hecate, etc. There are generations of gods in every major culture. In the latest Eagleman podcast4 about why does the brain believe in the supernatural, he (the guest Bruce Hood) says that even if a group of kids are left in an island (like Lord of the Flies), they would eventually come up with gods. He says even two year old kids believe in the supernatural. It is how the brain works and it is deeply rooted in our cognitive architecture because our brain evolved to connect the dots and tries to fill in blank spaces of understanding a world that is quite super complex for the human brain.
7 - Foreigners in Egypt
“From the date of the original settlement of these persons in Egypt, we Greeks, through our intercourse with them, have acquired an accurate knowledge of the several events in Egyptian history, from the reign of Psammetichus downwards; but before his time no foreigners had ever taken up their residence in that land.”
This is the Greek view that Egypt didn’t have foreigners before this time. But the Biblical view is that Israelites were in Egypt during the pyramid construction, right? Or did the Greeks view Egyptians and Israelites as one and the same?
8 - Egyptian class system
“The Egyptians are divided into seven distinct classes - these are, the priests, the warriors, the cowherds, the swineherds, the trades-men, the interpreters, and the boatmen.”
Interesting caste-system.
9 - Everyone should work
“It was this king Amasis who established the law that every Egyptian should appear once a year before the governor of his canton, and show his means of living; or, failing to do so, and to prove that he got an honest livelihood, should be put to death. Solon the Athenian borrowed this law from the Egyptians, and imposed it on his countrymen, who have observed it ever since. It is indeed an excellent custom.”
Ensuring that everyone in the country does something to earn a livelihood and that no one is lazing around seems like ‘big brother’ kind of heavy handed ruling. Why was this so appealing to Athens, I wonder!